


Down and Filthy in the Dirt

by ThiccDiccEnergy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Anbu Reader, Badass Reader, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Found Family, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Reader-Insert, Sealing Master Reader, You are a Badass, bisexual reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26435905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThiccDiccEnergy/pseuds/ThiccDiccEnergy
Summary: You are a sealing master in the village hidden in the leaves, but you used to be a ratter; a child born beyond the red line and left to die. You are content to keep your nose in the seals and out of other peoples business, but a blonde ratter with eyes that see the seals like you do catches your attention, and suddenly you're keeping your head up enough to realize that the world around you is worth getting dirty for.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Reader, Hatake Kakashi/You
Comments: 53
Kudos: 144





	1. I Dream of the Hound

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that the Reader is intersex in this Fic because of a sealing accident. This will be further explained but if this is triggering in any way please do not read this. Additionally, graduation age for the ninja academy will be sixteen. The plan for the pairing is Kakashi and the Reader but there will be graphic sex between the Reader and other characters.

“You thief!” you curled into a ball to protect your supplies. The ink had been expensive, it had cost the equivalent of one months rent on your shitty apartment. Above you, the lady screeched and beat her purse about your head and shoulders. You barely felt it. She was right about you being a thief, you were a ratter, a kid in the gutters of the village. Ratters had to steal, cheat and lie to get everything they had, and your patched clothes betrayed you as one of the few that got lucky enough to live to adulthood. But you actually had bought these supplies, they came from a shinobi supply shop, stealing from there would be suicide. You did your best to ignore her screams for a guard and shifted just slightly to tuck the new sealing materials farther under your body. Your chakra wrapped around you in a warm hug, it couldn't heal you, but it toughened your muscles into steel cords, more than enough to put up with a civilian swinging a paisley purse. 

“Ma’am, put the bag down.” The beating around your head stopped. You waited a few seconds and slowly began to unfurl from the protective position. One thing all ratters knew was that making a sudden move around an active duty ninja could be your last action. You slowly cast your gaze to a pair of shinobi sandals. You followed the legs attached to them up to standard pants, an armored vest and an ANBU mask. What the fuck was an ANBU doing here. Civilian matters weren’t nearly important enough to warrant one of the elite showing up. The ratter in you felt like it had been backed into a corner.

Your heart nearly stopped as you took in the pattern painted onto the mask of your rescuer. This wasn’t just any ANBU. The mask took center stage on a head of silver hair, and the marks on the porcelain itself held the visage of the hound. The hound was a well known name for all the wrong reasons. People whispered that he ate the hearts of his victims, leaving a trail of corpses with their ribs blown open behind him. Rumor had it that he could kill you so quickly that your ghost would rise the next morning and continue about your day without even noticing your death.

“Is everything alright here?” The woman began to tell some story about how she caught you stealing. You were barely listening. Instead you were focused on the Hound, still curled protectively around your supplies in the dust. He was positively tiny. You were average height for your age, and he barely reached your nose even with the strange shock of silver hair. The hound was a child. Likely even younger than you. The standard age for graduating the academy was sixteen, how young had he been when he walked out of those doors for the last time? How many lives had he taken before he was old enough to be seen as an adult out of uniform? How old was he now, standing over you in the dirt with a blood splatter just barely visible through a tear in his black pants?

“Is this true?” You slowly unfurl from your position on the ground and gently gather your supplies. A part of you was scared of the hound, but more of you felt a sense of confusion. Most people didn't stop and ask a ratter what had happened, they took one look at your over patched clothes and assumed that you were in the wrong. You stood, unfazed by the beating you had taken and clutching your supplies. 

“No.” your voice came out rough, a lifetime breathing the smog that lay heavy in the tunnels of the city left every ratter with a voice like sandpaper. “I paid for these, at Shinobi Stock.” The woman's face scrunched up in some strange mimicry of a mask. 

“Liar! I saw you-” you tuned her out in exasperation, it was people like her that drained what little faith you had in humanity. You turned your attention back to the hound. He must be miserably hot in that uniform, how did ANBU deal with it, maybe they had some kind of seal to help with temperature control? You should try to make one of those. 

“Ma’am there's a simple way to solve this.” you were brought out of your trance by the hound wrapping his hand around your wrist and insistently tugging you. For someone so small his hands were huge, and his gloves were tipped with claws that dug into the soft underside of your arm. It was like a warning to anyone he touched that he could rend them open with a flex of his hand. 

You felt those claws prick your skin and hurried to keep pace with his steps. On his other side, the woman who accused you of stealing was squawking at him, insisting that he should unhand her.  
He dragged you all the way to Shinobi Stock, where the old woman that sold you your ink supplies was manning the counter. 

“Well it’s been a long time since you’ve been in here.” to your surprise the woman who had been so lovely when discussing your latest ideas involving the finer points of using blood in sealing techniques was now glaring down at you with venom that made you want to curl within yourself. Her suddenly icy gaze gave you the shivers. 

She noticed your sudden withdrawal and her gaze softened significantly, giving you the chance to breathe. 

“Not you dear, i’m talking to that one.” she turned back to the Hound, the person you now realized was the victim of her glare. “I thought I told you to never step foot in my shop again.” The masked head of the Hound nodded. 

“It’s official business.” 

“Do I look like I give a damn.” you grinned, trying to force it down and failing miserably. 

“Did you have any recent thefts?” he sounded exasperated, you were pretty sure he was rolling his eyes under that mask of his. 

“Not one, in fact this fine youth that you are dragging around like a sack of laundry was the last customer in here, bought some of my sealing materials.” the hound released your wrist, the tiny pricks he left in your skin bleeding into your patched sleeve. You pressed the ragged edge of your shirt into the marks to staunch the flow as you watched the woman that accused you splutter her excuses. You tuned her out and tried to look at the Hound stealthily from the corner of your eye. You couldn’t help but feel like for once, you hadn’t been judged. You had been listened to.


	2. The old man with two limbs

You blinked yourself awake in your home. The seals set into the walls wrapped around you like a warm blanket, their energy licking at the edges of your consciousness. You sat up slowly and stretched your back luxuriously, hissing in pain as it gave an audible pop. Your house was one of the few places you could sleep soundly, with all of your defensive measures, a god could probably attack the house and it would barely sway.

That dream was a strange one, It had been a long time since you thought of the hound, that encounter had been years ago, before you graduated the academy and became an ANBU yourself. You hadn’t had the privilege of working with him in the field since you graduated, in fact, you had heard that he mostly took solo missions now for strictly assasination. You wondered if he remembered you. 

You stood up and began your day, stretching the rest of your body out and brushing your teeth. You sighed at the person you saw in the mirror. Even if the hound remembered that fifteen year old kid he helped on the street, he wouldn't remember you now. 

There’s a large seal on your back. It snakes around your neck and disappears into your sleeping pants, tiny barbs appear to come off of it and dig underneath your skin, disappearing into your spinal cord. It covers you in a rather beautiful design of black ink. 

There are other seals too, your thighs are almost completely covered, and you have sleeves of ink on both of your arms. You have seals for storage, seals for communication, seals for stealth, seals that heal you in a pinch and even a few seals that act like air conditioning for your ANBU uniform. Just like the idea that the hound unwittingly gave you all those years ago. 

Everyone has their vices, some people drink too much, splurge on the finest foods, or read porn until their eyes fail and they have a reputation for being the world's biggest pervert. 

You and your fellow shinobi could not afford that. Alcohol dulls the senses, the fine foods lay too heavy in the stomach, and although some of those in the village appear to have their heads buried in a book of smut, the reality is that they have their senses dialed to eleven with their hands on a knife. 

The ninja that wants to survive chooses a vice to be the only thing that their life is composed of; they choose the job. Take Gai for example, (a very fine ninja, on the few occasions you had worked with him you were impressed with his efficiency and the surprising genius of his strategy) that beautiful beast of Konoha spent every living moment training his muscles in an obsession that far surpasses just duty, it was his passion, his vice. 

Anko was another example, the woman worked at the interrogation division for a reason, she was obsessed with psychology and had the foremost torture methods stored in her mind like an encyclopedia.

Your vice was sealing. Most ninja never bothered, it was too complicated, too time consuming in battle and, quite frankly, very few people had a mind for it. You had fallen in love the moment you found a tattered scroll in the trash during your days as a ratter. Sealing was the reason that you become a ninja, you could have made a living as a merchant with your knowledge of the markets, or been hired as a courier for any number of sketchy underground institutions (a job you had taken sporadically when money ran low) but the shapes of the seals called you, they made you write until your fingers bled and filled what little sleep you managed to get with patterns-equations-possibilities. 

They were your obsession as well as your profession. There was no one in all of the elemental nations that could claim to match your usage of seals, even Jariya of the sannin (while more powerful than you with his summons and ninjutsu) did not have the technical knowledge or diversity of seals that you did. 

You loved seals, but the one on your back was a mistake. It was a mistake you made when you were a fresh chunin, a seal master that had just gotten your certificate and thought that they could do no wrong. A physical ideation seal. 

The idea had been to preserve the integrity of your muscles, that was all. For a while you even thought it had worked, in the first few weeks after applying it you had noticed that it was a lot easier to build strength, you could run longer and seemed to be faster too. 

Then you started to shoot up like an academy student going through a growth spurt. The process was painful, and left red stretch marks on your back and legs where you shot up too fast. It was a long, exhausting few months in bed where you could do nothing but eat and sleep. 

You came out of that experience at six foot four and with a few disturbing new features. The first of them was that you now had both male and female chromosomes. You had the dexterity and flexibility of a female, the speed and strength of a male, and after a nervous check under the waistband of your boxers when it first happened it became obvious that your equipment was not the way you left it, you had both sets in your pants. 

The worst part about the seal wasn’t those changes though, it was that you were actually okay with them. Before the seal something like this would have been terrible to think of, but now you felt like this was how you had always been. Something about the seal had changed your brain.

It made you okay with your new body, but it also changed other things in the soft folds of your mind. It made you more sensitive to the world around you, and it made you paranoid. Really paranoid.

You would wake up at the slightest noises, even when you were at home in the village. You triple checked everything, did you pack that thing you needed? Were the tops to your ink bottles screwed on tight? Did you turn the oven off? Did you remember to get milk? What was that sound? 

It came in handy sometimes, when you were in the field it paid to be paranoid, but was your worst enemy whenever you had a moment to rest and were completely unable to.

The only thing that helped you relax were the layers of alarm and defense seals that lined your home and, surprisingly, the company of a select few people. 

You had wondered for ages why you felt comfortable around your chosen few, and had eventually boiled it down to their chakra. One of the first seals you put on yourself was a chakra detection seal, it originally allowed you to tell if there was someone around you, but when you put your physical ideation seal down the two had gotten tangled (actually a lot of your other seals ended up absorbed into the mass of ink on your back). That simple detection seal had morphed into something else, you could feel chakra signatures like you were tasting them, and sometimes one would just soothe you. The old lady that ran Shinobi Stock, the store where you made your less illicit purchases was like that, she had chakra that tasted and felt like fresh, cold water and mint. 

You finish your morning routine and pull on your casual clothes. You had the day off, and some of your more...rare materials had to be restocked. 

You double checked your door on the way out, just to make sure it was locked, and began walking down the short path through the woods that surrounded your house. Most ninja didn’t live like you did, they normally stuck to the apartments in town, but you could feel other people through the walls of the rooms and had moved out to a tiny cottage a long time ago for your own sanity. 

You popped into the depths of the tunnels of the city through a long forgotten fire escape. It looked like a normal, rickety set of metal stairs that would probably cause tetanus if you weren’t careful, but if you took the stairs and entered through the shattered window two flights up, you would come to a room with a fireplace and a tattered bed. The man on the bed was a very old one, but you did not want to mess with him. He may be missing an arm and a leg, but something about him gave everyone the creeps, and you had seen one too many mysteriously mangled bodies in the alleyway out back to do anything out of turn.

You nodded to the old man with a small smile, his chakra felt like...like a spark that could cause a wildfire, like a disaster waiting to happen, but it didn’t stink like some others did. He inclined his head to you and used his one remaining hand to gesture across the room. Giving you permission to pass. You left a handful of bills on the floor, not daring to take a step towards him, and made a beeline straight for the fireplace, under the chimney was a black pit that dropped fifty feet straight down with nothing but a few thick metal nails hammered into the brick as supports. You ignored those and clung directly to the walls, descending down a narrow, claustrophobia inducing tunnel all the way to the underground of the city. 

The air in the underground was shit, it tasted like smoke and dust and had maybe ten percent of the oxygen that the surface did. you had grown up in the tunnels, and you still felt the impacts of breathing the stuff in your adulthood. You hurried on your way and tried to ignore the eyes watching you from the shadows. 

You made a beeline for the market, staying mindful of your wallet the whole way there.


	3. Blue-eyed Rat

Your wide knowledge of the sealing arts lent many abilities to you, among them was being able to tell exactly what seal master made what seal. The seal on the paper in front of you was most certainly made by a seal master, but you had no which one. The lines were clean, the spacing was consistent, and the pattern of the ink was simply perfection. It wasn’t a particularly complex seal, but to write a storage seal so well in ballpoint pen of all things? That took some skill. 

That's why you were so confused that you had no idea who wrote this. You had seen work from every person with even a remote basis in seals in the village. This lacked all of the quirks (cough-mistakes-cough) that they had, and you could spot that this new seal master had the habit of looping back on all of the points of the seal, making all of the places where lines ended in the array look like fluffy little tails. It was purely an aesthetic tick, you could tell at a glance that the seal wasn’t affected. You itched to know who wrote it. 

You looked for some sort of name on the page, there was nothing. 

“Hey! That's my homework!” 

You jerked your head up at the familiar voice, you recognized it from your sporadic visits to rat-town, the underground of the city that you once called home. It belonged to one of the kids that hustled shells, ran packages, and picked pockets for a living.

‘What is a ratter doing here?’ 

You actually weren’t one to judge, you had gotten out at his age as well. You paid your way into school with wads of stolen or hustled bills that you carefully ensured the authenticity of.  
The kid running toward you slowed as he approached, growing skittish as you watched him. He hovered light on his toes and ready to run just out of your arms reach. He was dirty, which told you he was still spending the night in the underground, and had taken care to discolor his hair, which was barely recognizable as blonde under the grease and grime. It was a smart move, the pretty ones never lasted long before being taken and sold. 

“That's my homework.” he looked to the paper in your hand, then flicked his eyes definitely up at you. Bright, intelligent blue eyes. 

You knew exactly who this was. Naruto Uzumaki, the container of the Kyuubi to adults, phiara to the children, and a boy who could be trusted among the ratters. He was good to spend your money on from what you heard through the grapevine, a quick courier who never forgot a message and never got caught on risky jobs. Apparently (judging from the paper in your hand) he was also a budding seal master. You can't help the smile that spread across your face. 

You extend the paper to him carefully, with both hands exposed and your palms tilted slightly upwards. He relaxed slightly at the sign of peace and snatched his paper, checking over it carefully and tucking it into a tattered backpack. 

“That’s some good work there kid, some would say excellent work.” He watched you for a few more seconds, not at all cowed by your towering stature. 

“I know you, I see you sometimes on Market street.” Market street was the name of a large tunnel under the innermost city, the people under the city gave it that name because it was just that, a black market. 

“One of Hades men sells igneous ink, it's the highest quality in the city if you pay well.” He relaxed a little more.

“You were a ratter?”

“A ninja now, but yes, I imagine that I did something similar to what you’re doing right now.” He bows his head a bit in respect, the ratters respected their elder siblings of circumstance more than most people respected their blood-related elder siblings. 

You gave him a nod back.

“You might want to put your name on that paper, you can’t turn in your homework without your name on it.” He flushed a little.

“oh, thank you, I forgot.”

“No worries. Tell you what, if you ever need help with a seal, you can find me through Madame Juliet. Ask her to put you in contact with the person who fixed her windows.”

Naruto nodded and vanished into the early morning shadows. The kid had some banging stealth skills, even in a fluorescent (through the dirt) orange tee shirt.

‘Good luck kid.’ You took a deep breath of fresh forest air, unclogged by the chakra of others at this hour. You picked up the smell of wind off of the ocean and wild animal. 

‘You’ll need it.’


	4. The Calligraphist

When he saw his paper get whipped out of his hands by a gust of wind, he thought it would get thrown into the drainage ditch and all his hard work would be ruined. 

He was equal parts relieved and terrified to see it get caught by the hand of a towering person in the black version of a Konoha Jounin uniform minus the flak jacket, indicating they were off duty. 

The ninja was almost two full feet taller than him, with hair in a practical, short cut and a bag of groceries in one hand. Naruto realized after a moment of conversation that he actually knew them. 

In the underground they were called the Calligraphist, an ex-ratter who helped the kinder brothels and merchant stalls with warning systems of seals for when there was danger approaching. Word on the street said that the Calligraphist could make even a cardboard box as sturdy as a castle of stone. 

This was proof that there was an out, there was a better life on the other side of the academy. The ninja was a lot nicer than he expected and on top of everything he had gotten a calling card! To receive a calling card for an elder ratter was an honor, it marked him with a protective order that would keep him from being sold and it would act as a warning that he had backup should be betrayed. By night he would be just that much safer in the underground as word spread that Naruto Uzumaki was under the shield of one of their own. He carried that skip in his step all the way to the classroom. 

“Here Sensei!” He turned the sheet of paper (complete with his name) to his teacher's assistant and grinned at the man standing next to him, Iruka was one of the people he liked most in the village. The young teacher smiled at him sometimes, a real smile that made him feel seen. He also knew that the young teacher had spent quite a few years running packages on the same lines that he did sometimes, he was an elder ratter just like the Jounin from this morning. That was all he needed to put Iruka on a pedestal. He ran to the nearest seat and sat down, he felt good about today. 

“I finished grading your homework's during lunch and I have to say that I am very impressed. Sealing is a very difficult art to use, so while I would not recommend that you try to activate your seal, almost fifty percent of you got the major structures of the seal correct. Now these are graded very leniently, just remember that even those with high marks should not try to use the seal on your paper.” 

The Chunin began to hand out sheets of paper. He smiled again at Naruto when he handed his back. Naruto grinned, full marks for the first time ever! No points off! 

“Sensei! You gave Naruto Sasuke's sheet!”

Naruto's blood went cold and he clutched the paper a little tighter to his chest. Why was Mizuki saying that? This was his work.

Iruka took the sheet back, squinting at it.

“This has Naruto's name on it.”

“He must have written that in and switched the papers during lunch, I am positive that Sasuke handed in that paper this morning.”

Iruka looked at Naruto and frowned.

“Is this true Naruto?”

“No! This is mine!” Iruka turned up towards Sasuke in the upper rows of seats.

“Sasuke?” Naruto met the other boy's gaze with pleading eyes. ‘Please don’t.’ it wasn't about the grade, it was about Iruka, what would he do if he thought Naruto had cheated? The other boy looked at his sheet with calculating black eyes and paused.

“Yes.” Naruto had never disliked anyone as much as he did Sasuke in that moment.

“Naruto, I’m very disappointed in you, stealing someone else's work is-”

“I can prove i’m telling the truth!” Naruto blurted his thoughts out desperately before Iruka could finish. The teacher looked down at the blazing, determined eyes in front of him and a look of surprise and relief ghosted over him before he regained composure. 

“Is that so? How can you prove it?” Naruto licked his lips. 

“Someone saw me with that seal this morning, they know seals! If I brought them in tomorrow morning, they can prove that's mine!” Iruka sighed

“I will hear this person out, but sometimes people close to you will lie, so unless they can prove that this is yours, I will give credit to Sasuke.” 

“They’ll prove it Sensei! I didn’t cheat!” Iruka shook his head, he was doubtful. ‘I didn’t cheat’ Naruto kept his head tall for the rest of the class, he refused to be embarrassed over something he didn’t do.


	5. Working Girls

You were not expecting Naruto to contact you the same day that you gave him a calling card. It was clear this was an emergency. That night found you in Madame Juliets, sitting in the back room and playing go-fish with some of the working girls. It wasn’t a normal game of go fish, the girls wanted to refine their skills and cheated almost as smoothly as you did. Almost. 

“You have any sevens?” The girl you addressed across from you glanced at her cards and her mouth fell open in shock. She was one of the younger girls, and had yet to play against you, seeing the three sevens that somehow appeared in her hand must have been unusual. 

“I didn’t even see you move!” 

“If you had, pretty lady, I wouldn’t deserve my title as a shinobi.” The girl blushed and handed her cards over. You placed your match four on the table, smirking at the young woman over your hand. She blushed again and looked away. She was very beautiful, with black hair done up in a messy bun for closed hours and gray eyes like tiny moons on the water. You were glad that she found her way to a reputable brothel like Madame Juliets. 

“Oh stop making my girls fall for you.” The ‘mother’ of the brothel was Madame Juliet herself, an older woman with silver wire hair and amber eyes, still stunningly beautiful in her old age and regularly requested as a wife by some of the more foolish businessmen in the underground.

“Yes ma’am.” you wink at the girls as you accept the cup of tea their boss just pressed into your hand, earning a swat to the shoulder. The girls giggled at you for that one. 

“Your ratter is here.”

Another girl peaked her head out from the back, this one was one of those that acted as a guard for the doors, your trained eyes noticed no less than seven weapons on her person. You stood from the table.

“Looks like I’ll be taking my leave.” You place your cards down. “Straight royal flush.”

The girls gawked at your cards and burst into hysterics. You grin and duck under the curtain to the next room. Naruto was sitting in the kitchen, holding a plate of food and surrounded by working girls pinching his cheeks and telling him to finish his milk or he’d never grow tall. 

“Popular aren’t you Naruto?” The boy looked down at his feet and grinned sheepishly. The gaggle of girls dispersed politely and brushed by you into the main room. None of them tried to pick your pockets, they knew there was no point in it. 

“Elder.” Naruto bowed his head to you.

“Younger.” You smiled lightly at him and sipped at the hot tea in your hand. The seals you had inked on the inside of your mouth told you that it wasn’t poisoned. 

“I need help.” You nodded.

“You can ask for anything, my calling card was open to you.” The story spilled out, his eyes burning with shame.

“I know it’s something so little.”

“No.” He looked up at you with a jolt, your voice was taught. “Someone stealing your work is important, never hesitate to contact me over something like this. Not to mention, a liar is not liked, word would get around.” For the first time you saw the corner of his mouth twitch up into a smile.

“Thank you.”

“This is nothing.” you look at him coolly “Do you have a place to stay tonight?” Naruto bit his lip. “Be honest.” you reminded him that he did not have to lie around you. 

“No, It’s too late to make it to the rat-pits.” You hummed and walked towards the door. The rat pits were safe houses for young ratters. They weren’t more than ramshackle old lean-tos, but they served their purpose. Anyone who tried to mess with ratters in the rat pits were left stabbed and gutted, their organs sold on Gore street.

“Madame?” You called into the parlor. Juliet swept through the door in night clothes. 

“The boy and I wish to stay here for the night, two rooms please.” you slip her a few bills, heavily on the generous side for a night's stay. It was always good to be polite when you were staying down here.

“Of course, I’ll show you to your rooms.” You motion for Naruto to follow, holding the curtain for him to pass. He pauses in front of you and bows. 

“Thank you.” You nod.

“We leave in the morning, we will be getting to the school a half hour before start, be ready to head out at Six.”

You were sitting in the room Juliet provided to you, fully dressed minus your sandals. You were bent over a scroll you had been working on for some time, you would not sleep again until you were comfortably back in the embrace of your seal covered bed, in your seal covered room, in your seal covered house. There was a soft knock at your door. The defensive arrays you placed didn’t register a threat, and with a pulse of chakra you disabled your protective measures to allow the person on the other side of the door access.

“Come in.” With a slow creak the door opens. You stood quickly from the bed when you realized who it was. The moon-eyed girl from earlier had entered your room in a swath of white silk. You recognized the dress immediately as the clothing a working girl wore when she was given away for the first time. “What-.” She blinked demurely up at you and approached with her palms raised.

“I do not wish to be sold for my first time.” Her hands went to the sash holding the robe on her body. She slowly untied it and let it fall to a silver puddle at her feet. It was a practiced move, and if not for the light tremble of her hands you would think her quite experienced. “If you will have me, please take me.”

She must have been prepped by the other girls, because her mouth tasted like tart cherries. You were tender with her until the sky was soft and she was curled against your chest, dreaming something that you hoped was beautiful.

She did not wake when you slid from the bed. You left pay you felt sufficient, a frankly ridiculous sum of money, on the bedside table as you slipped out. You woke Naruto, and the two of you left, rising to the surface in the early morning light.


	6. Academic Integrity

Everyone who was out this early in the morning knew you. You were hard to miss with your height and excessive tattoos. You often did your shopping as soon as the stores opened. 

You bought some onigiri and clementine's from a vendor and made sure Naruto had a breakfast fit for a growing boy. He ate enough for someone several times his size, you were interested to know if that was something that would last into his adulthood or if it was just the ratters hunger talking. You were willing to bet a bit of both, you had theories about the energy of a container's chakra being more potent and thus more difficult to sustain than normal. Perhaps that's why he was so short? Nutritional deficit due to all his food being put towards something else? What else would it go to? Perhaps he would let you study his chakra output, or better yet, his seal! But you didn’t want the poor boy to feel like a science experiment. You would hold off for now.

You arrive at the school and ghost through the gates behind Naruto. You could almost disappear when you wanted, your stature became far more diminutive with a slight slouch and a slight plod of your steps that took attention away from how predatory your walk was. You could already see the look on the poor teachers face when you took the sheet in your hand, straightened to your full height, and accused them of trying to steal someone's work. Ah, sweet karma. Out of the corner of your eye you noticed Naruto forcibly bring energy to his body. He was schooling himself to look around less, to act cheerful instead of razor alert. What a shame that the genius of this boy was dampened by the world around him. Maybe you could threaten his teachers to treat him better. 

“Sempai?” that thought quickly flew away as you took in the teacher in the classroom, it was Iruka, mission room tyrant and a past student of yours. 

“Iruka!” you greeted him with barely concealed confusion, what was one of the foremost experts on traps and chakra sensing doing here? You knew for a fact he had been working as a hunter the last time you checked up on him, that was… actually that was almost a year ago, it's no surprise that he moved on, but teaching? And in a chunin uniform? Shouldn't he at least be johnin by now? He was well on his way to it when you last saw him. 

“What are you doing here?” I could ask you the same thing, you think. You smile and gesture to Naruto. 

“This little scamp called me in.” your plan to intimidate the hell out of the intrepid teacher went out the window. 

Iruka had been an older ratter. When his parents died in the fox attack he found himself alone and without the skills the younger children had learned to survive. You had taken an interest in him and found yourself with your first official protege under your wing. 

You were only a few years older than him at the time, but he had latched onto you like a much younger child. You had fond memories of saving him from his misguided attempt to pickpocket a shinobi. Iruka responded to your comment in a way you didn’t expect.

“You're-you’re a ratter?” his voice had gone soft when addressing Naruto. That was a surprise, you had assumed that he had known. 

“You were too sensei, they still like you down there.” 

“Well, I wasn't a real one.” You unintentionally let out a displeased rumble.

“Once one of us, always one of us Iruka.” Naruto relaxed fully, the fake energy he forced onto his face when he entered the school dropped away and a tiny, real smile blessed his face. A smile of someone who found out he wasn’t alone. You can't help but copy it in response. 

“I didn’t know.” Iruka looked saddened.

“That would be the whole point.” your tone was dry, but teasing. You stopped slouching and drew up to your full height. 

“You- oh!” Iruka looked at you with shock. You didn’t often relax, when you did it became very evident that you were a massive human. Well over six feet tall and broad. It had been a while since he had seen you face to face. So his shock was understandable. 

“I’m glad you’re alright Iruka.” You surprised yourself with the pang of loneliness in your chest, Iruka's chakra tasted like warm chia, spicy and comforting all at once. “Naruto called me in because his sealing design was claimed by someone else. I have a masters certification, will that be sufficient to prove authorship?” Iruka gave a startled laugh.

“Yeah, yeah that's good, especially coming from you.” He started shuffling through the papers on his desk. 

“Here, this should be it.” Your hands touch the paper and the anti genjutsu seals you had inked up your arms dig invisible barbs deep into your skin. The purpose of them was to warn you and simultaneously dispel any genjutsu with pain. It wasn’t effective on anything too advanced, but on something trying to be subtle or delicate it was more than sufficient. 

You let out a growl and snatch the paper from Iruka's hand. 

“There's a genjutsu on this.” Iruka backed up at your sudden outburst, you were rarely this passionate, only when it was about sealing did you raise your voice. He quickly recovered and moved to peer over your shoulder. 

“That's impossible, it hasn’t left the classroom!” 

“See for yourself.” You let a tiny pulse of chakra and the paper rippled, fading away to reveal the real sealing matrix under the technique. It was a subtle change, one almost no one would notice, but it was significant because it erased Naruto's signature flare whenever it appeared. 

A signature flare was a quirk or flaw that occurred repetitively when writing, all sealing masters had them. Your signature flare was a tendency to double hash instead of single hash your lines, you found that the flow of chakra through the ink was smoother that way. Though you couldn't explain why. 

These quirks didn’t affect the workings of the matrix; but they did provide a calling card, an identification on every seal as to who was the one that wrote it. Naruto's signature flare was the turned back ends that you had noted when you first saw his work. They looked a little like flames, or (ironically) tiny fox tails. 

“See these flicks, the looped back terminations of the lines? I noticed that when I first saw Naruto’s work, it’s one of a kind.” You were reminded that Naruto's seals also had excellent spacing. Iruka ran his hands through his hair. 

“I’ll have to file a report about this, would you mind signing as a witness?” you were more than happy to, and stayed through the notification paperwork. Any deliberate tampering of academy students technically counted as sabotage of a military asset, and it was taken seriously. By the time you signed the final form, other kids from Naruto's class were trickling into the room, gaping at you. 

“I’ll get this filed.” You nodded at your former student.

“I’ll check in, make sure the matter is sorted out yeah?” You were serious about keeping an eye on the reports progress and the consequences that were to come of it. 

This particular matter rubbed you the wrong way. One or two poor schmucks had tried to claim your work over your lifetime. They didn’t get to keep the credit or their livelihood for long. 

“Ah, and Naruto?” The boy looked up at you, there was something that could be described as hero worship in his eyes. “Meet me at your favorite ramen stand at seven tonight, we need to further discuss proper lessons.”


	7. Fight Brutal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Idea to have Naruto call the reader Cali (short for Calligraphist) was given to me by KittyKatt25. I thought it fit because the reader will express that their previous name does not quite 'fit' later in the story. It is the reason that the reader never shares their name.

The ramen stand was a terrible place to set up a meeting. You hated that you couldn’t see into the street, you hated the flimsy curtain that gave no real protection and you hated that the stools at the bar left your back open. 

On the plus side the ramen was delicious, and surprisingly cheap for how high quality it was, and the old man and his daughter had faint chakra (typical of civilians) like vegetable fields in the sun (before someone put fertilizer on them). 

But you had to be here, it would make Naruto feel more comfortable, and it was important that he understood the vital necessity of a mentor before he accidentally blew himself up with an experimental seal. You also wanted to get some food into him, you were well acquainted with the gnawing of hunger at your elbow. It had been a consistent companion of your past, it was not a companion you wished on Naruto. 

“Elder?” You slowly looked toward him, careful not to make any sudden movements. 

“Naruto, right on time.” You didn’t mention that you had been waiting for ten minutes, watching from the shadows, and had timed your arrival just moments before the meeting time. “Go ahead and order, it’s on me.” He gave a tentative smile, ordering a bowl. You noticed that the young woman taking the order frowned at the brief exchange. 

“Miss Ayame?” You stopped the waitress as she turned to leave. 

“Yes?” 

“Just keep it coming for him okay? I’ll cover it.” Naruto's head snapped up. 

“You don’t have-” you fixed him with a steady glare, causing him to cut himself off abruptly. Unlike so many others, he was able to hold your gaze. “Thank you, I’ll be sure to pay you back.” You would have argued, but his expression was set, prepared to argue with you should you try and rebuff his insistence. 

“Alright then, you can start by working for me part time, in addition to your lessons that is.” He had the skills to do basic sealing matrices, you could have him write explosive notes for you, normally you mass produced them to sell and it could make you a pretty penny to have an extra set of hands.

“You meant it when you said you’d teach me?”

“Of course I did, sealing might be easy now, but in more complex designs the risk of error is much greater, it’s likely that you’ll blow yourself up once or twice.” He shifted, but not in the way that he normally did, this was in more of a sheepish way. “Naruto.” He looked up at you and you narrowed your eyes. “You already blew yourself up didn’t you?” He smiled hesitantly. 

“No?” 

“Are you hurt at all?” He relaxed and his grin became more genuine. 

“I heal fast.” That was a good thing in sealing, a VERY good thing. If you didn’t have the chakra or the knowledge for shadow clones then being tough was a factor that could decide life and death. 

“Well, no use thinking about what's already done.” The noodles were served, steaming and delicious. 

Naruto showed up for his first lesson at an overgrown clearing that used to be training field one but now served as the place that Tora (the demon cat and the scourge of all genin) hid from two to four every other day. 

When Naruto walked up to you he lingered, hesitant. You didn’t blame him; you looked like shit. 

You had been on a mission the other day, and it had gone south. Most of your missions required you to do what you were best at: gather intelligence and plant your deadly traps, leaving nothing but smears of ink and blood behind you. You could fell a fortress or a kingdom like that, there was no one who could be your equal with laying in wait, and the raw power of a seal that fed on the energy of those caught inside of it was unparalleled. You were less adept with hand to hand combat. 

It just wasn’t your specialty. You were strong, fast, and you could endure a lot of hits (far more than the average shinobi), but you were a ratter before you were a ninja. You never had any training in combat arts outside of the basics provided to you at the academy, you had no family secrets to learn nor any elders to teach you. So you fought with what you knew best when you were in a pinch.  
You fought hand to hand like the cornered rat you were in those situations. Your techniques were dirty, and you lashed out like a brawler with your fists. You hit hard and never let an opponent get up when they were downed. It worked best when your opponent wasn't expecting it. When they were expecting it you ended up bruised, because you never learned how to block a blow you either dodged it completely or took it full force. 

The injury that held Naruto up was probably the black eye (though it was purple and yellow at this point, healing, but draining down your face and making your under-eye bags look even deeper). Though, the slash mark across your neck that stopped a centimeter before your jugular could also have played a part in it. 

“Don’t ask.” He didn’t, and sat beside you on the log. “Did you eat yet kid?” He nodded, but there was a pinching of his face that you recognized, hunger was gnawing at his elbow. “Well, eat again, you’ll need fuel for this.” you handed him a sandwich and a large bottle of water, pulling out your own meal. 

“So kid, how far have you gotten into sealing.” He was practically inhaling the food, you made a note to bring more next time. 

“I was able to get my hands on the standard beginner sealing books, they were at the library, I also found the intermediate volume three.” You nodded, internally cringing. The sealing books taught your art through memorization. They gave an example of a seal and told you to copy it, they didn’t go into the language of seals, and didn’t even touch on the flow of chakra that’s required for creating a matrix. 

Seals were made by ink on paper (in simplistic terms), and that was all that the books most people used taught you; but there was so much more to making a seal. The maker of the seal had to leave their own chakra in the lines as a guiding wire that told the activating chakra where to go. Technically, you didn’t even need ink to make simple seals, you could leave an imprint of energy for chakra to follow to make a temporary design, completely invisible to all but the most experienced sensors. 

Once you got to more complex seals, ink was needed to retain the chakra and prevent it from mingling and disrupting the matrix. Certain types of ink carried more chakra, and different chakras reacted differently depending on the medium used. Many high-level sealing inks had to be customized with the maker's blood to optimize how smoothly chakra took to the ink. That was why you were so impressed that naruto was successful in making a design in ballpoint pen. His guiding chakra strands happily swam around in the matrix, it was downright beautiful. 

“Good, now you know what to avoid.” Naruto let out a hesitant grin. 

“They were pretty useless, just told me to copy the designs and they want you to start from the side?” 

“Exactly!” you threw your hands up in exasperation. “Anyone with two braincells should know that you-”

“Start from the middle!” 

“Right!” you finished off your sandwich. “Now, tell me what you know about major seal features and their effect on chakra flow.” 

Naruto was brilliant. When he could pay attention. The kid had an attention span of five minutes maximum, less if he was trying to focus on something that he wasn’t interested in. After a few hours of sternly reminding him to pay attention you realized that a change of tactic was necessary. 

“Stand up Naruto.” He shot to his feet. “Let’s stretch, we’re going to spar while we talk.” 

“Why? Won’t that be distracting?” You grinned at him. 

“I don’t think it will be, besides, it will let us both get some practice in.” Naruto was constantly alert, his brain was trying to pay attention to everything at once, and in doing that, was failing to pay attention to anything at all.

Plainly put, Naruto had ADHD that was exacerbated by the constant awareness that came with the paranoia of being a ratter. 

It wasn’t a bad thing, it could save your life in a survival situation because of the heightened awareness it brought on and would be an advantage in the field. However; it made learning new things absolute hell. Book learning was out the window. 

You hoped that by giving him something physical to do while you talked would help fill up his awareness with what was happening in the moment and he would be able to focus. 

“We’re gonna warm up, I’ll show you what I do and I want you to follow along.” You began dynamic moments, instructing him to focus on how his chakra and blood flow increased in tandem. 

“This is very important for missions, you can use your chakra to constantly push your blood to your muscles, not only will that make you stronger, it will also prevent injury by keeping your body warm and ready for movement.” He seemed to be paying attention to what you were saying with more ease. 

“Like when you put chakra into a seal?” You smiled.

“Exactly like that, and just like sealing you should practice these outside of missions, you may have to cut corners on a seal in the field, but you can only get away with that if you push yourself to do all the little things right while you’re in the village.” You finished the stretches “now, let’s see what you’ve got.” You brought your arms up like a boxer. Naruto grinned, bounced on the balls of his feet, and then rushed you. 

Sparing with Naruto while you taught him worked really well. He absorbed the material like a sponge when given the proper tools, and it gave you practice dodging (you weren't going to hit the kid). It also brought out some glaring problems with Naruto's fighting style. The first few times you noticed his incorrect stances you assumed he was just inexperienced, but you quickly realized that some of the mistakes were leaving glaring holes in his defense. Holes that could get him killed. 

“Okay stop.” he immediately put his hands on his head, breathing heavily. At least he didn’t crouch over and exaggerate his oxygen depletion, that was a common mistake. “Kid, who taught you to fight?”  
“The instructors at the academy.” You wanted to punch them. 

“Sorry to tell you like this, but they taught you wrong.” He flinched back. 

“But, I went in for extra help, I spent hours-” a sour look crossed his face. “They did it on purpose didn’t they?” 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they did.” You were going to kill them. “So here's what we’re going to do.” You were going to kill them and feed them to the rats in the gutters. “Forget everything they’ve ever taught you.” He looked confused. 

“But then how am I supposed to fight?” 

“Look, I’ll be honest, the academy style is ultimately useless in the field, most ninja come from long lines of shinobi that can teach them how to fight.” 

“But, I don’t have that, if they start off with an advantage then how are the rest of us supposed to catch up? That's not fair!” 

“Trust me, I know.” You smirked. “But you have an advantage too.” 

“I do?” 

“Yeah, you know how to fight dirty.” You readily admitted that your style wasn’t the best for fighting large groups of people, you were a berserker, a brawler. That didn’t change the fact that no small number of people had fallen under your strikes; experienced ninja had fallen under your strikes. “Listen, because ninja have so much formal training, they rely on it. They don’t know fights like we do. Throw dirt in their eyes, headbutt them, break their nose-”

“Go for the balls?”

“Exactly! They expect you to fight them hand to hand? Run away and circle around, lay traps, there should be no bars on a battle.” you cracked your knuckles and got back into a boxers stance. “Now lets go again, it’s time for you to unlearn all that bullshit.” 

Naruto's stomach started rumbling just as the sun was dipping down beyond the horizon, it was nothing that a trip to the ramen stand couldn’t fix, but you didn’t want Naruto to miss out on nutrition any more than he already had. You took it as an opportunity to teach him how to forage and set basic wire traps. 

The forests around the village were rich with food, you lived in one of the easiest biomes in the world to get a meal from. Most ratters were never taught about what was and wasn’t edible, so much of that knowledge was considered useless by the upper class of the village that public libraries carried nothing on the topic. 

You didn’t think it was useless, you had gone hungry too many nights for food to ever be a commodity. 

You showed him how to clean a rabbit when you caught one in your snare, describing how the pelt could be saved and used as insulation for cold weather clothing if you were in a pinch. 

“You can also sell them. A whole pelt like this goes for a modest amount on the fur market, enough for a meal. Just don’t kill too many or the supply goes down.” You swiped your fingers down your forearm, and with a wisp of smoke a heavy, cast iron pan appeared in your hand. 

“You have storage seals on your body!” You hadn’t talked about those yet. 

“Yeah, you didn’t think these were tattoos did you?” you rolled up your sleeves and displayed the intricate markings that covered almost eighty percent of your body. 

“Wow.” He looked up at you with wide eyes. “Can I touch them?” 

“Go ahead.” He cautiously ran a finger over the marks. 

“They’re raised a little?” 

“Yes, I tattoo them on so technically they’re scars. Whenever I want to change something I use a technique to drain the ink from the skin.” 

“You can do that?” 

“Yes, I use charcoal ink, so I only need a mild earth jutsu to draw it out, actually it's the same jutsu that’s used for purifying water from heavy metals and minerals.” You didn’t mention the mark on your back, so ingrained with your system that it couldn’t be removed. 

“Do you think that I could do it too?” 

“Yeah of course, I wouldn’t suggest getting a tattoo because you’re going to grow really fast in the next few years and could warp the design, but you could use a bandage and wrap it around your arm for the same effect. I’ll teach you how after dinner.”

“Thank you Cali-Sensei!” you blinked, stunned. 

“Cali?” He went pale and started fidgeting. 

“Yeah, short for calligraphist? I just...kinda call you that in my head.” 

“Hmmm, I like it. Cali it is.” you ruffled his hair as a brilliant grin broke out across his face, practically ear to ear. “Now, when you’re trimming a rabbit you want to make sure your knife is very sharp and find the joint of the leg before you made your first cut.” 

You showed him how to remove the rabbit thighs, as lean meat, it was perfect for muscle building. Just what a kid with stunted growth needed.


	8. A bump in the road

Some of your seals took years to create. Some were conceptualized and developed in a day. This one though? This one took about a week, and you locked yourself in your workshop to do it. 

You lost track of time, or rather, you became obsessed to the point that you no longer cared about the passage of time. By the time you pulled out of the stupor, it looked like a bomb had gone off, there was paper everywhere, you were stained with ink up to your elbows, and your back felt like it was about to rupture at every joint of your spine. 

It was done though. Your seal was finally complete. You ran a finger lovingly down the prototype, a deceptively neat pattern on a scroll of fine cloth. Teleportation had been lost with the Yondaime Hokage, he took his secrets to the grave with him, and they would likely never be replicated...but, you had gotten one step closer. 

It was what you called an archway, a door that pinched the world to a point between the two segments. Anyone could pass through the door so long as the one that placed the seal willed it. 

The only problem was that to activate or pass through the seal, you needed a lot of energy. So, you would attach it to your enemies and bring forth your allies directly into them, they would become their own undoing because of the combination of your latest creation and a chakra draining seal that you taught yourself to make in the basement of a brothel years ago. You sighed, chances are that no one would ever use it, it would likely never be cleared for use by the board of jutsu that determined what techniques were worth unleashing into the world. Only you would ever know it existed, and only you would ever use it. 

You rolled the scroll up and set it into one of the cubbys that lined your wall, next to the dozens of other creations that would never see the light of day. You opened the door to your workshop and squinted at the bright light. Was it morning already? You checked your clock and swore. 

You had your lesson with Naruto that afternoon, and you hadn’t slept since a quick cat nap two days ago. Or maybe three days ago? 

You would have to cancel. 

You walked with proper posture on the way to the academy, you didn’t want to slouch like you normally did and worsen the pain in your back, so you stood upright and moved with all the grace of a predator. 

It had the added effect of everyone staying out of your way. No one wanted to mess with a heavily tattooed giant in shinobi blacks (the version of the uniform meant for stealth missions). You ducked into a convenience store to get Naruto some food to make up for the meals that he would normally spend with you. (it was always a struggle to get him to accept anything from you. You understood. In the gutters nothing came for free, everything had a price.) This time you would give him the food as an apology for missing the lesson and he would have to accept it. 

You bought him two sandwiches, a few drinks, and some snacks. If there was too much he could share it with his friends (though you doubted there would be). While you were at the academy you should check up on Iruka too, you didn't have the energy to spar and teach but a quick conversation with your previous student wouldn’t hurt (you wondered if you had come far enough to call him your friend). 

You subtly nodded at the guards that were posted at the academy gates (it was a military institution after all) and passed through into the yard.

You got there just as lunch was letting out. Perfect timing. Kids spilled out of the doors, running across the training field and finding places to sit in the shade. It was a peaceful scene. 

“Iruka!” The young teacher was eating a sandwich and keeping an eye on the yard. He stood when he saw you, and greeted you with a firm clasp to your forearm. The gesture was common amongst ninja, but more common among ratters. It was a sign of ultimate trust to put yourself in such a vulnerable position. Iruka's warm chia chakra wafed over you at his proximity. 

“Welcome!” he had to look up to give you one of his signature smiles. Without your slouch you were drawing quite a bit of attention from the students, they were starting to bunch around with curiosity. “How are you?”

“Well enough, I just finished a project.” Iruka's eyes narrowed, his normally comfortingly warm chakra becoming spicy. He peered into your face. 

“I hope you have learned from your previous mistakes?” you winced, Iruka had dragged you out of one too many stupors while you were working on your seals. It was probably plain on your face that you were still guilty of that crime. 

“Yes.” it was a blatant lie, and Iruka knew it. “I was just about to rest up, but I wanted to have a brief word with Naruto about our session today and I thought I would check up with you about that report.” Iruka's smile faltered. 

“Well the report was filed correctly, but...” he glanced around “come with me inside for a moment.” You felt your eyes narrow. 

“Lead on Iruka.” He ducked into the school, pausing to situate another teacher in his place watching the students. Once the door to his class room closed behind you he practically exploded, he had always had a temper, carefully hidden by his kindness. Only when he truly cared about something did his passion show. 

“Those bastards rejected the report!” 

You growled, audibly. 

“What the fuck! To reject a report you need all signing parties to consent, my signature is on that document!” 

“The council rejected it, they said it was a biased document.”

“A biased document?” 

“They had an anonymous source, they called it a sabotaged report, biased against the Uchiha clan.” Iruka looked defeated, but you were freshly livid and paced around the room. Resisting the urge to snarl. 

“What did they say about the illusion? In order to discount a jutsu observation like that they would have had to contact me.”

“They tried to say that you placed it.” Iruka smirked “I’ve never seen Shikaku Nara so ready to throttle someone.” That made sense, the Nara clan was one of your most prevalent customers, you were the one that designed the sealing matrix that protected their ancestral forest. Shikaku knew you, and he knew that you would never do anything to help steal another's work. 

“There has to be a report review right? We had two witnesses.”

“They tried to argue against it, but they don’t have as much sway over this. The students are normally classified as civilians but- and I just figured this out through the grapevine, both Naruto and Sasuke are classified as military assets.” 

“Through the grapevine?” Iruka gave a faint smile.

“Well I may have a cozy office job now, but a long time ago someone told me to be prepared for every contingency, I’ve got some plants here or there.” You were proud of him. “I expect that they’ll send you a summons in the next few days.” 

“That gives me plenty of time to find this ‘anonymous source’.”

“And to rest.” You sighed. 

“I’ll take a day off.” 

“And I will keep an eye out for suspicious behavior in the other teachers.” 

“Are you sure one of the other teachers is the anonymous-” 

“Oh, Hinata.” Iruka cut you off as the door opened, a dark head of hair peeking its way in. The girl was a Hyugga, her eyes lavender and pupiless. If you didn’t know any better you would think she was blind. “What’s wrong?” He was crying, obviously upset. 

“T-they’re f-fighting!” she was breathing hard and stuttering, watching you with wide eyes. 

“What!” you followed Iruka out of the room, he was practically steaming with anger. You were a little afraid of him. 

He burst into the yard with what you would describe as an unholy vengeance if you were the religious type. You smirked, you couldn’t wait to see some kid get an earful. 

That smirk didn’t last two steps into the yard. 

Naruto was the kid fighting. He was taking on three boys significantly bigger than him, and he was all over them like a whirlwind. 

You had told him to fight dirty, but you didn’t expect him to take it to heart so quickly. You watched as he took a fist full of dirt and flung it into someone's eyes, proud of his resourcefulness. 

“Naruto!” You stood back, letting Iruka pull Naruto off of the other boys. He immediately began a lecture to the glaring blonde, scuffed and bleeding from his abrasions. 

You looked around, waving the little Hyuga over from where she was hiding behind the door frame. 

“Hey, Hinata was it?” she nodded, trembling like a leaf. You crouched beside her and the fear faded from her eyes, becoming wary. You smiled at her. “I’m Cali, can you tell me what happened? Why was Naruto fighting?” she met your eyes. 

“Y-you’re Cali!” 

“At your service.” 

“N-Naruro h-heard those b-boys call you a m-monster. H-He said ‘Cali isn't a m-monster’ and th-they called you m-more names. H-He hit one of th-them.” Oh, fuck. 

Insulting a ratter was fine, you got it all the time! But insulting a ratter's elder? That was off the table. Hell, you hadn’t seen them in years and if you heard someone so much as breathe wrong in the direction of your elders you would make sure that the guilty party became the unwilling recipient of an enema composed of acid. 

“Iruka!” you kept your voice soft. You had seen how Hinata flinched at Iruka's screams. You waved Iruka over, Naruto following him with his head hung. 

You pulled Iruka close so you could whisper to him. 

“Naruto heard them insult me.” 

“They WHAT!” you set a hand on Iruka's shoulder, smirking. You were his elder too, not just Narutos. He probably felt the same indignancy that the kid did. 

“Can I talk to Naruto alone?” 

“Oh course, I’ll take care of these...students.” You could feel the anger rolling off of him in waves. A lot of people knew Iruka as a reasonable, reliable shinobi. He was reliable, but you had no clue how people thought he was reasonable. He was passionate, with a temper and an inability to compromise on anything. He was a bullheaded, stubborn, ruthless man. You were proud of him. 

While he started chewing out his students (looking more terrified and ashamed by the second) you faced Naruto. He had his head down, staring at the dirt, with clenched hands and a furious scowl on his face. You sighed and reached out, ruffling his hair.

“Good job in that fight kid, they weren’t expecting that fist full of dirt were they?” his glare softened and he looked up at you with wide, blue eyes. 

It was moments like these (few and far between) that made you remember just how young Naruto was. Kids in the underground grew up fast but that didn’t change the fact that they were still just children. He was only twelve, and yet he went without any of the normal experiences that a kid his age should have. You remembered what it was like; you never ate a hot meal, you never got a good night's sleep, you never had any positive physical contact...you were always afraid. 

“You’re not mad at me?” You laughed and crouched in front of him. 

“If I was mad at you I would be a hypocrite, if anyone called my elders a monster I...well it wouldn’t be pretty.” That earned a tiny smile. “Did you eat yet?” 

He shook his head. It wasn’t surprising, it was hard to find something to bring to school when your food came from cans. 

“Good.” You held out the plastic bag. “It's an apology, I had something come up this morning and I won’t be able to make it to your lesson today.” He hesitated “Naruto, take the bag.” He slowly took it, looking inside at the abundance of food. 

“Can you eat with me?” You laughed. 

“Not today, but let me show you something.” you wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pointed him towards Hinata, currently sitting alone and eating out of a well made bento. “That girl defended you today, and it doesn't look like she brought a drink.” you grinned at him. “Why don’t you offer her one.” 

Okay so you lied to Iruka. You didn’t take a day off. Instead you took a three hour nap, woke up just enough to eat dinner and then crashed for another twelve. It was close enough to a day...right? 

You couldn’t stop thinking about the anonymous source. You needed to figure out who it was and you didn’t have long to do it. 

How were you supposed to do that? Sure you were a ninja but you were also trying to get information from one of the strongholds of the village. A village made specifically to keep enemy ninja with just as many skills as you out.

Luckily you were an asshole who was so used to tricking the system that it came as second nature. 

That’s how you found yourself in full ANBU gear outside of the shinobi documentation office. How would you get in? You walked through the front door. 

The shinobi office was used to seeing you, hundreds of your more...interesting seals were housed behind its walls, either turned in by yourself or deemed ‘too dangerous’ by a superior (honestly how were you supposed to know that your portable heating seal exploded when left on long enough, you had assumed that no one was stupid enough to leave it running unattended). This time you carried a large scroll, the twin to the one in your workshop. 

“Oh! It’s you!” You smirked a little under your mask. 

“Hey.” Yue was a very adorable man. Shaggy ash-blonde hair, glasses, freckles, a cute upturned nose...a twink. You had actually met him at a bar, right after your transformation into the giant you were today. Your first impression of him was exactly what you would expect, he slid up to you, blushing and egged on by his friends. He was cute, and called you handsome. 

You decided to say fuck it, you needed to see if your dick worked. 

You railed him in the mens bathroom, a hand over his mouth. It was nice to know that your penis worked. It was only after he came on your dick that you realized you had a bit of a problem, you weren’t coming. Like you had the sensation of orgasm but you were still hard as stone when you tucked yourself back into your pants. You also didn’t release any sort of fluid, presumably without any balls you had no sperm. He had offered to suck you off with an eager shine in his eyes, but you declined, and after some prompting you shrugged, and showed him your unusual anatomy (that he was unable to see before with his ass pressed against your hips).

He completely accepted it, and that was important, because some small part of you was afraid that he would run away when he realized what he was dealing with. But he just asked if he could eat you out too. 

He didn’t end up eating you out, you had been hogging the bathroom for too long.

You had only realized exactly who you had fucked when you walked into the seal office to deliver a few of your failed creations for safekeeping and he looked you straight in your Lions mask, grinned, and asked if you would like a repeat performance in the break room.

Yue may be running the front desk, and he looked like the textbook definition of a secretary at surface level, but the beauty of shinobi was that they were never as they seemed. Yue was an ANBU, one that specialized in anti-infiltration and siege defense. His chakra tasted and smelled like stone. Raw, cold stone.

Every crack in the building? Sealed. Every vent in and out? Boobie trapped. The space between the steel building and the drywall? Filled with his specially poisoned dust that allowed him to simultaneously create and control thousands of stone rats. Toxic to touch, venomous, biting stone rats. 

You had worked with him once, protecting a convoy of royalty. Seeing enemies attack the earth dome he created only to be overwhelmed when it suddenly began swarming over them had been an eye opening experience. 

He made breaking into this place a hell of a trial. Or at least he would, if you weren’t a known seal master bringing in a highly dangerous creation that required immediate containment. 

“Delivery, threat level five.” He quirked an eyebrow and took the scroll, giving you a brief nod. You held out your arm, palm up.

He gripped your wrist and you felt a sudden, brief flash of pain. He had drawn a knife across your middle finder, so fast that the motion was invisible to the naked eye. The blood was dropped onto a slip of paper, a codex. Konoha was the only village to have one, courtesy of the fourth Hokage. It was a sealing matrix that stored and remembered chakra signatures. If one of the ‘leaves’ came into contact with blood or chakra from a ninja that previously had a sample stored inside of the ‘body’ of the seal (currently somewhere in the village so secret that even you didn’t know where it was kept) it could confirm their identity. You had tried to figure it out for years, but hadn’t had much success. 

Yue disappeared into a back room. The scroll would be immediately labeled, disinfected, and stored in one of the most secure warehouses in the world; you would have a meeting with the council to explain its use later, where they would have the final say on its use. Because of the bureaucracy (and the fact that you filed the scroll as a level five threat instead of the seven that it was), it would likely be several weeks before you received a summons. Exactly as you planned. 

In the meantime you wandered down the side hallway, slipping into the break room. Lucky you kept condoms in one of your storage seals. 

To someone on the outside it would have just looked like you went home. You did go home, but not for long. 

It took three hours for the shinobi office to close. 

Each second dragged.

Yue could feel a chakra pulse from a mile away, you wouldn’t be caught dead in the shinobi offices while he was there. 

When it was finally time you activated your sealing matrix. 

Sealing matrices weren’t flashy. That was one of the benefits of them. They were perfect killers, silent and sure. 

But with something this large and this powerful, something beautiful happened. Your chakra became visible in the lines. It was stunning, golden and warm. You felt the drain of the seal, sucking chakra out as it slowly unfurled. You pushed hard, forcing more of your energy into the design, until with a sound like the roar of a wind tunnel, you vanished. 

It worked, your seal worked. It felt like being hit by a bus but it worked! 

You stumbled to your feet. You had arrived on top of your scroll, in one of the shelfs that they stored dangerous artifacts. 

The shelf had collapsed, dropping you five feet to the ground. The seal had used more power than you calculated, your nose was bleeding from the strain. You had just enough left for the trip back. 

After so much preparation and buildup, the rest was pretty easy. You walked up to the legal section, everything painfully organized thanks to the perfectionists in the business, and just found the case file. When you did a smile stretched across your face. You didn’t know who this ‘Mizuki’ was, but he was going to wish he had never been born. 

You memorized every detail, put the file founder back and then returned to the scroll. 

You passed out as soon as you got home, face down on the concrete floor of your workshop and drained of chakra. 


	9. Snitches May get Stitches, but Traitors Go to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes this is a found-family story as the reader begins to think of Naruto as their younger sibling/child what of it?  
> Relax, Kakashi gets there eventually.

“Who’s Mizuki?” Iruka threw a knife at your head. You snatched it out of the air. He had good aim.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Yeah I know, anyway, who’s Mizuki?” You had broken into Iruka's apartment. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest Idea (you had seen some of his traps do downright nasty things) but you were in a rush. 

“He’s one of my teaching fellows, just graduated to genin a few years ago, why?” 

You leaned closer, a smirk on your face. 

“I don’t know Iruka, why would I be asking about one of your fellow teachers?” 

His chakra went so spicy it burned your nostrils. 

“I told you to TAKE A DAY OFF.”

You felt the blood drain from your face as he backed you up against his kitchen counter, holding a kunai that he had pulled from who knows where. The man was wearing an apron and no visible gear for goodness sake! Did he just pull that out of his ass?

“Now Iruka, let’s not be too hasty, I had a full night's rest.” 

“That is not a day, now SIT.” he pushed you into a chair. “You’re having lunch.” 

He had always been pushy. 

“I will, if you tell me a little more about this Mizuki character.” He huffed. 

“You’re ridiculous.” 

“Ah, but you’re fond of me regardless.” 

You winked at him.

He did not seem swayed. 

“You were right.” Oh how you savored hearing those words from Iruka, so sparingly they fell from his lips that their sound was a melody as rare as a shinobi with a steady mental state. “Mizuki is...fuck how did I miss this.” 

You were watching Mizuki from afar as he tried to sneak around and utterly failed at it. Honestly, you were surprised that he passed the final test at the academy. Maybe standards had fallen since you graduated? It was common sense that when you were trying to be discreet you had to blend in, not pace around the same area for an hour looking over your shoulder ever ten seconds. 

If you had to guess you would say that he was meeting someone. 

You did not have to guess, because someone sidled up next to where he was pacing (suspiciously) by the village fence.

You were going to eviscerate that bastard. 

“Watch for me, I’m using the hearing aids.” You swept two fingers down the ridge of bone behind your ear, directing a tiny amount of chakra into the design that you had inked there with the help of a mirror and shadow clones. 

It came to life, and crawled across your skin, oozing tendrils into your ear. It was an unpleasant feeling, but not a painful one. 

You lowered yourself to the ground and shivered as the black mass of ink in your ear dripped across the dirt, tiny, hair thin tendrils extending like some strange creature from your ear and spreading toward the target. 

The downside to this seal was that it took a lot of concentration to do, so you needed to have someone to watch your back or you needed defense seals. 

You had also discovered the hard way that you had to wait for the ink tendrils to fully retract before you could move or they would tear your inner ear enough to redefine agony. 

You listened. 

“How much longer do I have before I can leave.” Mizuki hissed at the figure beside him. 

“Patience, there is no time limit on your initiation into the village, you need to prove your worth and provide the information you promised.”

Mizuki hissed. 

“Is what I already provided not enough? Each day I spend here I risk being caught.” 

The figure stepped closer, making Mizuki flinch back. You heard his heart rate increase through the seal. 

“Dear Mizuki-”

The tone of his voice made it clear that Mizuki was not dear to anyone. 

“If you can not provide for us under such lax circumstances, you are not worthy of the title of one hidden in the sound. Next meeting I expect a more...favorable attitude to report to the higher authorities.” 

You heard the tell-tale blip of someone body-flickering away, it sort of sounded like a breaking rubber band. 

You took that as your cue to reel in the listening seal, trying to ignore the unpleasant tugging sensation that accompanied it as it retreated from your inner ear. 

You stood and brushed the dirt off of your clothes. 

“Iruka.” You were using your no-nonsense voice, the one you saved for when play time had officially ended. 

“Yes?” 

“I’m going to be gone for a few days, stay away from him until then.”

“Is he a traitor?” 

Iruka's voice had gotten more severe. Ratters hated two things above all, snitches, and traitors. Neither lasted long in your world, and you had done your fair share of punishing those that stepped over the line. Iruka held a particular hatred for traitors, though you did not know exactly why. 

“Yes.” 

“Are you going to kill him?”

“Painfully.” 

He nodded to you, his eyes harder than normal, like a black sea in the night they held unspeakable depth and something foreboding. 

“Come back safe.”

You vanished into the forest, deceptively swift for your size. 

You wore the mask of the Black Lion purely by chance. You weren’t like the Hound, so famous before entering the ANBU that his mask was chosen for him, instead you wore the Black Lion because it was the only one they had that would fit you. 

As far as you understood it, it’s previous owner had to have it custom made, he must have been exceptionally tall himself. He also must have had quite a lot of hair, because the lion had an attached mane. 

You had cut the mane when you first got the uniform, you did not need that much hair to cover your short style, you just needed enough to cover the tattoos on your neck (those would be a pretty dead give away to your identity and the last thing you needed was some of the deeds of the black lion to be traced back to you).

It was good for stealth missions, being black it allowed you to avoid the typical reflection that bounced off of a white mask. But whenever you did show yourself… well it led to some misunderstandings among your co-workers. 

If they didn’t already know you, they normally assumed that you were not working on the same side as them. 

You didn’t blame them, most ANBU masks were white, and you weren’t well-known enough to warrant a reputation that was widely known.

That’s how you found yourself under attack in the Hokage's office. 

The ANBU in the snapping turtle mask appeared out of no-where, his fist (you assumed they were a he by their impressive bulk) slammed into your hastily thrown up block, and to your surprise you felt one of your reinforcement seals move hastily to your forearms, it’s tendrils tightening around your arms and providing additional support to prevent your bones from shattering. 

One of the seals actually tore, an impressive feat to accomplish, especially with a single punch. 

You reacted to the attack as fast as you could, stomping one of your thick boots into the ground. 

The boots made an impression in the Hokages thick carpet, a result of the carved seal on their heels. 

You pumped chakra into it and it immediately came to life, chakra strands winding around your attacker and immobilizing them. 

Normally you could tighten the strands to the point that they would strangle your opponent, but you barely had time to secure the ties around his body before you felt them begin to splinter apart. 

He was pulling them apart, and not with chakra. 

He was pulling them apart with pure, physical strength. 

You poured more chakra into the restraints, trying to get a few more seconds. You wouldn’t be able to win in a face-to-face fight, they weren’t your forte but they were clearly his. 

“The will of fire burns in the leaves!” 

It was a common phrase used to express ally ship among the forces. Your attacker paused, and you slowly released your seals as a sign of surrender. He did not relax his defensive stance.

The Hokage looked up from his papers, undisturbed by the fight that had occurred a moment ago.

“Stand down Snapper, Lion is one of ours.” 

The other ANBU took a step back and gave you a short bow. 

“My apologies.” 

You smiled under your mask and ran a hand over your forearm. It wasn’t broken, but it was likely going to bruise terribly. 

“No need to apologize, you were only doing your job.” You winced as you flexed your fingers, the reinforcement seals retreating to repair themselves. “Impressive punch.” 

He seemed pleased. 

“As was your binding technique. I could feel the chakra when it restricted me but could not feel you preparing to use it.” 

The Hokage chuckled, back to reading over documents as if nothing happened.

“Lion is one of our foremost seal masters. Was that a custom design Lion?” 

You shook your head. 

“A simple modification sir.” 

“You sell yourself short, Lion.” He flicked his pipe, sending smoke rings into the office air. “A simple modification for you would be far more complex to someone else.” 

“Thank you for that sir.” You turned back to the ninja in the Snapping Turtle mask. “I apologize for restraining you.” You were impressed with his strength, you had never met someone with the ability to break through one of your seals with raw physical strength before. Most of your seals were actually made for people that relied on chakra to strengthen the muscles, as most shinobi did not bother to continue with increasing their physical training. 

It actually made sense, once you plateaued with your physical training making any progress was very hard and time consuming. Because of that, many of your restraint seals were chakra draining, and couldn’t account for the raw power of someone that spent their time honing their body.

Clearly, you needed to redesign some of them to account for pure strength. 

“I would like to spar against you some time Snapper.” 

“I would like that, it is not everyday that I get to test my skills against a sealing master. You can find me quite often training in the ANBU grounds, if you were to stop by, I would be more than happy to make time for you.” 

“It’s a deal.” you reached a hand out, his grip was firm, but not crushing. Clearly he was a man that had a full grasp on his own strength. 

As close as you were to him, you got a taste of his chakra. Warm linen, freshly turned earth, and stone under the sun. Just like the animal on his mask he was as steady as the earth itself. You ended up shaking his hand for a bit too long. 

“Lion.” You released his hand swiftly as the Hokage called out to you. “I do appreciate bonding between my troops; however, you only visit in dire straits, if you are here then you must have something to report with urgency.” 

“Yes sir.” you pulled out a small scroll. “This is a recording of academy instructor Mizuki speaking to whom is implied to be a liaison from the village hidden in the sound.” the Hokage froze, putting his pipe out decisively. 

“The sound? That is an issue.” 

The village hidden in the sound was new, so new that you were not prepared for any threats from them. 

The fact that you were seeing activity from them meant that they were ready long before their predictions. 

Those that ran the calculations on the economy and capability of the Sound village were the best of the best, there was no way that they had messed up the data on such a simple enemy.

Everything pointed towards an unseen factor, backing the sound village from the shadows. 

The Hokage played the recording twice. 

“Lion, seal the room.” 

Your gloves were purposefully cut to allow two of your fingers to be exposed, your pointer and middle finger were the best to slice on the occasion that you needed blood for a sealing matrix. 

That is what you did, sticking a piece of masking tape to the wall and then slicing the side of your pointer finger, guiding the blood with chakra until the correct matrix was up. 

You activated it, golden light spreading from the seal like a spider's web and laying in a lattice over the walls of the room. 

Snapper let out a breath of amazement.

You did NOT preen, not even a little. 

“I’ve never seen a seal like this.” 

A normal privacy seal would have taken months to install, and worse, it wouldn't have been portable. Yours was, because why the fuck would you not want to have a private space to exchange information in the field, all you needed was an enclosed space...and a sealing master to write the seal in their blood and stay withing the parameters of the field. Yeah maybe that second reason was why it wasn’t widely used. 

“It’s one of my custom designs, if you had seen it before we would be better acquainted.” 

You turned back to the Hokage. 

“Sir, what are your orders?” The Hokage had a contemplating look on his face. His eyes were hard. 

“Lion, how did you come about this information?” You winced under the mask. “And take off your mask for this.” 

Fuuuuuck. You removed the mask reluctantly, slipping it back into the storage seal on your wrist. One of the downsides of the ANBU uniform was that your skin was almost completely covered, you would normally need exposed skin to use the seals inked onto your flesh, but you had hand sewn chakra conducting metal plating over your seals, allowing them to propagate through the cloth. It was another of the techniques you had discovered during your research. 

“Lord Hokage, you know of the recent charges brought up against Naruto Uzimaki, the ones about his academy work being falsified?” 

“Ah yes, it is nothing unusual unfortunately, the boy is a bit of a trouble maker.” 

“No, he is not.” The Hokage startled. 

“What?” 

“Sir, Naruto has shown a talent with seals that I have never seen matched, I’ve been working with him for the last few weeks and I can say with certainty that he did not falsify any of his work.” 

“I appreciate that you want to stand up for the boy, but you have no way of knowing-”

“It was a sealing design.” He paused and leaned back in his seat. 

“His work was a sealing design?” 

“Yes, he is brilliant when it comes to sealing, a prodigy that I haven’t seen even in my fellow seal masters.” 

“I was told that the complaints were against his sealing work?”

“You were lied to Lord Hokage, I filed a sabotage report alongside Iruka Umino. When our document went up for review it was struck down and they claimed it to be a biased document. Based on an anonymous source. Mizuki is that source. I don’t know what ended up on your desk but it was not the report that I filed.” 

He ran a hand across his face, a slow, somewhat evil smile spreading ear to ear.

“For your sake I will not ask how you found the council's sources. Know that the same lenience will not be given twice and I expect an explanation of the hole you discovered in our security to be passed through the proper channels.” He pulled out a file from his desk, opening it to reveal court documentation. He began rifling through the papers.

“We have been handed a golden opportunity.” The third Hokage was known to be a kind man, but that was not all of the truth. 

His exterior was kind, his heart was kind, but the rest of him? His bones and muscles and guts were steel. It showed in his eyes as he steepled his fingers. 

“I have been trying for some time to disband all civilian influence on shinobi matters, as you well know they prevent my forces from doing what they must.” 

That was true, sometimes those outside of the forces did not understand what must happen in order to protect that which they loved. 

“I want to prove them biased against shinobi and incompetent. I have just been waiting for the appropriate opportunity to get the public on my side.” His eyes glittered. “I am going to show up to the meeting review about Naruto, just a casual drop in to observe the proceedings. You will be there to testify, correct?” 

“Yes, I witnessed an illusion on Naruto's work and will likely be called in. either that or it will be Iruka.”

“I will make sure that it is you, I want you to come in full ANBU gear.” 

You hesitated. 

“Lord Hokage, would that not reveal my identity?” 

He lifted an eyebrow.

“You are six and a half feet tall and the only combat-ready sealing master this side of the elemental nations, people are not stupid.” 

You scratched a hand across your head. 

“No one has guessed it so far.” 

“You just don’t talk to people.” The Hokage was deadpan. 

Snapper nodded from his position leaning against the wall. 

“Every shinobi who has met you in and out of uniform knows.”

Well that was embarrassing. 

“I see Lord Hokage.” 

“I am going to have you come in and present your credentials, they are far beyond sufficient than what is needed for this case. You will also present your investigation into Mizuki as if you did not find information about his identity as the anonymous source.” He signed a paper, stamped it, back dated it to several weeks before you first met Naruto, and then handed it to you. 

It was a mission scroll to search the public facilities for spies. 

“With your seals, is something like this possible?” You chewed your lip. 

“Yes, with chakra sensing barriers I could determine any new entities entering a facility, and I could tag suspicious individuals with recording seals to listen for suspicious activities.”

“Perfect, I am sure you already have those seals up and have been monitoring public facilities for several weeks, of course this is what you did to Mizuki was it not?” 

You could see where his question was leading. 

“Yes, the mission is going well and the traitor Mizuki has been discovered through these means, it is suspicious that the council appear to be colluding with a known traitor simply because he pandered to their intentions. Especially because I tried to correct his treacherous manipulation with my own expert observations. Of course I only did this because I was trying to prevent interference in such an essential operation.” 

The Hokage shook his head, smirking. 

“For the council to ignore such a qualified individual they must have been dead set on the opposite verdict, so determined to believe a lower ranked individual that it is almost suspicious.” 

You liked where this was going and continued the proposed line of thought.

“Suspicious enough to launch a very public investigation that will surely NOT reveal a conveniently placed paper trail proving embezzlement of funds from the people for their own means.” 

“Oh I am certain the honorable council would never do such a thing.” 

Snapper moved from the corner of your eye, a boisterous laugh leaving him. 

“Perhaps I should have requested a game of chess instead of a fight?” 

You laughed with him. 

“I’m afraid that would not end well Snapper.”

“And why is that?” 

You shrugged and replaced your mask. 

“I never learned to play chess.” 

The Hokage looked at you fondly. 

“Thank you for your hard work Lion, you will be compensated appropriately.” 

“Thank you sir. I just have two other matters to mention.” 

“Please speak frankly.” 

You held up a finger.

“Firstly, I ask for official permission to continue training Naruto.” 

“But of course, it is natural for a shinobi to recognize such talent while in the field, and looking after our interests as a village by cultivating the next generation is only what can be expected.” 

“Second, I would like to be the one to execute Mizuki.” 

You did not have to ask what Mizuki’s punishment would be, the only consequence of such treachery was death.

The Hokage smirked. 

“Granted, and may you be despotic in your delivery. You are free to go.” 

As soon as the Hokage issued a dismissal you were gone, the privacy seals vanishing as soon as you exited their bounds. 

You had a lot of work to do, and a kid to pick up from school. 

You felt like...a dad. Sitting outside of the academy with a bag of snacks in one hand and a cup of steaming hot cocoa in the other. 

It was getting cold in the village, and Naruto would need something to warm him up after his practical exam. 

You had started walking him from the academy to the training grounds whenever you were off of missions, at first you told yourself that it was because there was a traitor in the academy, but it quickly became a part of your daily routine. 

“Ah Cali.” Iruka approached you where you waited at the gate. “A moment, about your-about Naruto.” 

You frowned and followed after him. 

“Did he get in another fight?” 

“Oh no. Nothing like that.” 

“Then is it about his grades? I was under the impression that he was passing all his classes, it’s not like him to lie.” 

“It’s not that either.” 

“Then is it about the practical exam?” 

“Part of it, yes.” 

He waved you in through the cold air and showed you to a door labeled the teachers lounge. 

“The last few children are taking their practical exams, it shouldn’t be too much longer until they are let out.” he closed the door behind him. “That gives us some time to talk.” 

You felt a prickle of worry, if Iruka was pulling you aside like this it was likely ratter business. 

“What is this about Naruto?” 

Iruka sunk into one of the chairs and sighed. 

“I heard through some of my sources that Naruto has been working for Ging in exchange for housing.” 

“Yes, he told me about that.” 

Ging was one of many wealthy men in the business of illegality. He was not on your nice list, but he paid well and he kept his money and hands washed. You respected him at the very least. 

“The agreed contract ended two days ago.” 

You sat heavily in a chair. You hadn’t heard that, according to your information you should have had at least another two weeks. You cursed under your breath and lowered your head into your hands. 

“It was freezing last night.” You breathed it out in disbelief. You had woken up to frost on your lawn, had Naruto really slept outside in that? 

“Cali, I don’t think he slept at all last night.” 

That was a common technique to stop oneself from freezing to death. There was a saying about it among the rats. ‘Keep moving, may your breath be warm, in winter night that would do you harm.’ 

You laughed half-heartedly.

“He's a smart kid.” You stared blankly at the wall. “What was the bit about the practical exams.” 

“Cali!” Iruka shouted, he sounded exasperated and angry. “You’re just going to leave it at that?!” 

You didn’t know! 

You felt helpless.

“I would have never accepted help when I was in that position.” 

“Naruto is not you!” 

You stayed silent, looking at your hands. 

“You are not everyone else Cali, no one ever reached out their hand to you when you were at your lowest, but you’re telling me that if someone had you wouldn’t have taken it?”

You remembered the freezing nights on the streets, your worn shoes falling apart and barely clinging to your feet. It had been so cold, so bitterly freezing cold… you would have taken a hand had there been any. 

“I’ll think of something.” 

Iruka was clearly frustrated.

“WE will think of something, over dinner tonight. Be there and bring Naruto.” 

A tiny smile crept onto your face. He was such a...you didn’t know, but it felt good.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” 

“At seven.” 

“Seven.” 

“And you better figure out something to do about Naruto's basic equipment too.” 

That must have been the bit about the practical exam. 

“I can teach him a thing or two.” 

“Good.” Iruka stood from his chair. “Now let’s go, I can hear them letting out and Naruto will be excited to see you, he did well.” 

You grinned. 

“I already know I’ll be proud.” 

“Hey kid!” 

“Cali!” 

Naruto looked like shit. He looked like he had gone three rounds with the Hokage and then rolled around in a field. 

His dark circles could probably suck boats to the bottom of the sea. 

“You look awful.” Maybe you were a bit too blunt. 

“Gee thanks.” he glanced at the cup in your hand, interested but not asking.

“I brought this for you, a little celebration.” You handed it off to him. 

“What is it?” He looked unsure. 

“It's hot chocolate.” 

“What’s that?” 

You grinned. You had an experience similar to finding god the first time you had a hot chocolate. 

“Try it.” 

He took a cautious sip and his eyes went wide. 

“It’s so good! It’s like milk but not milk?” 

“Right?! And it’s not tea either!”

“Right!” He took another excited sip. 

“I brought you snacks too, I have pretzels, graham crackers, and I also got you a little protein box, it has cheese and those wasabi almonds you like in it.” You ruffled through the bag. “Oh, and there's some pocky in here.” 

“You didn’t have to do that!” The other kids were rushing to their parents, the sky had opened up and began to sprinkle snow down on the yard. It was a bit early in the year.

“Of course I did!”

“You don’t even know how I did on my practical!” 

You laughed at him. 

“How did you do?” 

You already knew of course, but you would let him tell you.

“I got third in the class!” 

Of course he did, he may not have technical training but no one had endurance like he did.

“I’m proud of you.” You ruffled his hair. 

His eyes went really wide, blue like skies after a storm, his chakra became sharper to the taste, he was scared. 

Why was he scared? 

You slowly took your hand off of his head and crouched beside him. 

“Naruto? What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.” he was pretty good at hiding his emotions, but you could taste the...it wasn’t quite fear, perhaps trepidation would be the best word. 

“Ah, was it the hair? You should have said something.” 

“No!” He didn’t seem like he was lying. 

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to tell me tonight, we’ve been invited to Irukas for dinner.” 

“We have?” 

“Yeah, we’ll stop by my place for a shower, you reek kid.” It wasn’t the whole truth, you were inviting him back to your house because you wanted him to stay there, not because he needed to clean up before seeing Iruka tonight. 

The entire situation was delicate, he was too happy for you to chance ruining it with a misplaced comment. You knew he wouldn’t accept the warm bed waiting at your place easily. 

“Come on, you’ve never been to my house before have you? It’s on the outskirts of town, I think you’ll like it.” 

As you left the crowded school yard, you felt Naruto hesitantly grab onto the edge of your coat. You mentally filed that as another thing to buy for him. 

Maybe this would go better than you thought it would. 


	10. Family is Found in the Gutter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The action is next chapter, this one was just self indulgent family fluff

It did not go better than you thought it would, it went worse, so much worse. 

Iruka had made a fantastic meal, with banana crepes for dessert too.

It was just a shame that you chose to bring up Naruto's living conditions when iruka was bringing dessert to the table. 

“Naruto.” You began, nerved gnawing at your stomach. “What would you say to staying with me?” 

He froze. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I have extra rooms, one of them has your name on it. It’s a warm bed and three meals a day, and you’d be closer to the academy. I can’t promise that I’ll be home all of the time but-” His chair scraped across the wood floor. 

When he stood you instantly known that you had somehow fucked up, he was giving you an icy stare, cold and harsh. 

It reminded you of yourself, the anger, the unwillingness to accept help, the irrationality. He had all of them, built on the foundation of a crumpled childhood. 

“I don’t need your pity or your charity.” 

He stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door. 

“Naruto!” Iruka went after him, but you grabbed his arm and pulled him back inside the apartment. 

“It’s no use Iruka.” You were cursing yourself inside your head. Your lack of tact had dumped Naruto back into the cold for a night. “Let him cool down for a bit, he’ll be back in the academy on monday and we can talk to him then.” 

“Monday! It’s already below freezing!” 

You sighed. 

“I know. He won’t have a good time but...well he won’t die.” 

“We have to go after him!” 

You slumped back into a seat and shook your head. 

“We won’t be able to find him, he’s good at technical concealment and...I taught him to mask his chakra.” 

“You WHAT!” 

“I thought it would keep him safe!” 

“His stealth skills were already good enough to fool everyone in the village, who is he hiding from? The Hokage?”

“I DON”T KNOW!” 

You brought your fist down onto the table, stopping it a hair's breadth away from shattering the poor thing into kindling. 

You took a deep breath and let your hand fall with a heavy thunk besides your empty plate. You suddenly didn’t have room for dessert. 

“I don’t know.” 

Iruka placed a hand on your shoulder, giving a comforting squeeze. 

You dropped your head into your hands and sat at the table with him in silence. 

You didn’t sleep the night that Naruto left. You got back to your house late, not even bothering to climb into bed. 

Instead you turned all the lights on and paced. You had built your house yourself, there were seals laid into the foundation, into the walls, into the wooden flooring under your feet. They felt your nerves just like they did on nights when you had one too many nightmares and paced as you were now, or laid awake staring unblinkingly at the shadowy creature that appeared at the end of your bed, unable to move. 

They had such complexity, and so much of your chakra coursed through them that they almost took on a life of their own. They tried to comfort you with the warm, golden chakra that you had used when you first activated them. You had been so happy when you bought your property and finished your home, that sunny chakra with all it’s joy was still in the seals. 

It brushed up against you, the seals reaching invisible hands out and spreading their tendrils under your feet to warm the wooden flooring from beneath. 

You appreciated the effort, but there was no comforting you, not that night. 

It was five am when you realized that it was snowing again. Not just the little flurry that you had gotten the day before, but large, heavy snowflakes. 

It was so thick that you couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of you. 

“Shit!” you ran a hand through your hair bit your lip so hard it split. Naruto was out there, he had just turned thirteen and he was out there, in the cold, hiding from you. 

You blamed yourself for it, you knew that he wouldn’t accept help like that. In the gutters whenever you received something, even if it was from your own elders, it was expected that it would be paid back. Charity and accepting charity were looked down on. 

You wanted to scream at him that it wasn’t charity, that he could accept your help because he deserved it. He did a great service to the village every day, he put up with constant mistreatment and he worked so hard even though he had been disadvantaged from birth. Naruto never gave up, especially not on himself. 

Was it so bad that you wanted to help someone like that? 

You sighed, you were being a hypocrite. When you were a ratter you were blinded by the rules around you. Don’t look anyone in the eye, don’t have friends, make money and don’t share it, work for yourself and no one else. 

You didn’t want to do that anymore. 

Something fluttered at the corner of your consciousness, a breach to your perimeter seal. From the feel of it they had a lot of chakra. 

You slammed into high alert, arming yourself with one of the many knives you had hidden in your home. 

You made them yourself. Short, stout blades good for close quarters combat. 

You were about to activate your siege seals when you realized something, your seals knew the chakra signature, meaning it had been in your house before. 

Only one person had ever been to your house before. 

You burst out of your front door before you made a conscious decision to move. 

“NARUTO!” 

The snow was coming down thick, but you could feel him, faint and at the edge of your yard. He must have stopped concealing his chakra. 

You were at the edge of your property in a flash, just beyond the treeline a body was crumbled on the ground. 

Someone must have attacked him and taken his orange jacket and his shoes, he was barefoot and only wore a tee shirt. He had rapidly fading bruises lining his arms, and the snow around him had melted in a perfect outline. 

How long had he been out there? 

His body was overly hot when you touched him, you could practically see the malicious chakra of his prisoner pumping through his body just to keep him warm. 

Despite the steam that you could see leaving his body, it wasn’t enough. He was shaking and his toes had started to turn gray. 

“Naruto?” You dropped to your knees beside him. He was unresponsive. 

You scooped his body into your arms and sprinted back to your house. 

-Narutos perspective-

Naruto woke slowly, he was warm. 

The only times he had woken up warm were in the summer, even the hospital bed he found himself in on occasion had been cool. 

This wasn’t the same. 

He cracked his eyes open to the sight of a wooden ceiling, golden and cherry toned. 

It was far nicer than any ceiling he had ever seen with the exception of one time. 

The few minutes he had been inside of Calis home he had seen the same beautiful slats flushing under the sun. 

He sat up slowly, he was laying on Calis plush couch covered in a thick blanket. He was wearing socks, he hadn’t owned socks in years. 

Why was he here? Last he remembered he was on the other side of the village, in the underground, shivering in a ditch to hide from the wind. 

There was a fire burning in the fireplace by the couch, and there was the smell of food in the air. 

“You’re up.” Cali walked into the room from the kitchen, holding a tray. “Just in time too, I finished lunch.” 

There was soup and crackers on the tray. His stomach growled at the smell of food. 

Cali laughed. 

“Good to know your stomach is still working.” 

“What am I doing here.”

Naruto sat up slowly, propping himself up onto the pillows. 

“Heck if I know kid, you showed up passed out on my lawn.”

His mouth tasted and felt like sand. 

“How long have I been out?” 

Cali checked the clock on the wall. 

“About six hours, I’m surprised it wasn’t more honestly. You had frostbite so bad I thought your toes would fall off.” 

“How did I get here.” 

“You showed up in my lawn this morning.” Cali had a mug of something, to Naruto it smelled sweet, slightly spicy. “Scared the piss out of me when you did too.” 

Naruto wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. He should leave, but he didn’t want to. 

“Cali?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you offer to let me stay with you?” 

Cali let out a long sigh and leaned back into the cushions of the plush chair. 

“Selfish reasons.” There was a long moment of silence. “I know that you’re capable, I know that you can take care of yourself just like you have been all this time, but I worry about you.” Cali had large, graceful hands. Hands that could make art as easily as they could topple a mountain. 

They were both covered in scars. 

Naruto realized that the raised lines were red and irritated, cracked in some places from the cold. 

Careful fingers soothed over a particularly painful looking split in the knuckle of the right pointer finger. Naruto found himself wondering how much it hurt, and where the initial injury came from. 

“I care about you Naruto, and as more than just a ward of the underground.” Naruto looked away from Cali’s piercing gaze. He felt transparent, like those eyes looked right through him and saw how desperate he was to accept the offer. He wanted to stay here, in this beautiful, hand built home that smelled like warm wood and fresh air. 

But he would never be able to go back, if there was a day that Cali decided he was no longer worth the effort, he would remember the moments they spent together for the rest of his life with regret. 

A day would inevitably come when all that had been done for him was tallied and billed to his tab, he would never be able to pay for everything that had been done for him, he had nothing to offer and the gap that had already formed would never be closed.

After all, there was nothing substantial tying them together, no bond outside of the circumstances they had both become victims to. 

“Naruto, I want to adopt you.” 

....What?!

-your perspective-

You weren’t sure until the moment you blurted it out, but it had been circulating in the back of your mind for weeks. 

Due to Naruto's unique status as a living weapon, you couldn’t adopt him in the eyes of the village, (you knew that Iruka had looked into the possibility of being his guardian before only to be met with brick walls of legislation) but you could adopt him in the eyes that really mattered. 

In Naruto’s own eyes, in yours, in Irukas. You wanted to adopt him, regardless of the challenges that came with that. You would take the good and the bad if he would indulge your selfish desires of family. 

Was that what you had been searching for all this time?

You didn’t know, all that you knew was that you were finally looking up and the world was a lot brighter than you remembered it to be. 

Naruto looked frozen, stunned almost, he had an expression that was heartbreaking. His chakra started smelling like a scared animal, tasting like the bite of sour berries and unpleasant slide of gamey meat. 

You rushed to explain yourself. 

“I know that you’re mostly independent, and if you want to keep that independence then you don’t have to stay with me. I can help you get an apartment with money from your seal sales, I can keep teaching you as we have been. I just...I want you to be safe. I know it’s selfish but I want you to be safe.” 

That flavor of distress got deeper, you sighed. There was nothing else you could do. 

“If you’ll have it, there’s always a place here for you.” 

Fuck, you were upset. So upset that you couldn’t even look at the kid. 

It was a sound that dragged you out of your own, self-inflicted misery. 

A sniffle.

Naruto was crying. The type of silent cry that welled up and snuck up on you out of nowhere. Big, fat tears were rolling down his cheeks. 

He held out his arms to you. 

You were hugging him before you could stop yourself. 


	11. Lion Den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Graphic Violence

“Cali-Sensei?” 

You used a thousand percent of your will power to avoid the instinct to attack the sound. 

“Hey kid.” 

Naruto had been through a difficult couple of days while moving in, and he came out of it constantly shuffling out of your way and hovering at the edges of your vision. 

You understood him in a way, he was nervous, clinging so tightly to this new thing he had been given that he was afraid it would break, he didn’t want to mess it up.

Of course Naruto couldn’t mess it up, you wanted him there because you cared about him, that care wouldn’t evaporate because he bumped into you or woke you up at night, or if he ate every bite of food in your kitchen (which was a close thing, you always thought you had a big appetite but HOLY HELLFIRE where did he put it?). 

He was so nervous he was leaking fear into his chakra, and you tasted that and then got riled up yourself which of course only made him more nervous. It was one big feedback loop of anxiety and it was beginning to affect the seals in the foundations of your house, they kept looking for danger that wasn’t there and tickling gentle chakra waves against the bare soles of your feet in an attempt to calm you.

You took a deep breath and forced yourself to calm down.

Naruto looked like he had just woken up, his hair messed up around his head and his eyes were blurry. You checked the clock, frowning when you saw it was just a few minutes shy of four in the morning. 

“What are you doing up so early?” 

“What are  **you** doing up so early?” He countered, rubbing at his eyes. “You got back really late last night, Iruka won’t be happy if you haven’t been sleeping again.” 

You shrugged, internally wincing. You had been called in by the Hokage late last night to analyze a potential sealing matrix on the outside of the village gates. 

As it turns out, some kid had just decided to spray paint a cool ‘ninja symbol’ on the wall and got a little too close to an explosive seal for comfort. 

You got back from that at two in the morning, and had crashed on your bedroom floor. 

“Just one of the perks of the job.” you brushed past him and ruffled his hair, feeling the anxious edge to his chakra soften into something that fit more securely into the shape of your own. 

“Where are you going now?” He followed after you into the kitchen. You glanced down at yourself, you had forgotten that you were still wearing your uniform, you had never bothered to change out of it, it's comforting weight had helped reinforce the feeling of safety that came from the chakra-laced walls of your home. 

You had never expected Naruto to wake up and see you in near-complete uniform. 

“Nowhere right now, I was just thinking of making some breakfast.” 

You gestured to the pan next to you.

“Want to help?” 

* * *

“Naruto.” You put your fork down on your plate with a dull clink. “I’m going to be away for a while tonight.” 

“Again?” You felt bad about going away so often, you hadn't thought about how frequently you were gone until you had a kid to come home to. 

“Yeah, I can’t lie to you and tell you this isn’t going to happen again, but I’ll try to keep my working hours when you’re at school.” 

“Oh no! I don’t mind, really!” He tried to wave it away, but you knew that being alone in a strange place was hard for him, just like it was for you. 

“Naruto, you’re my son in everything but paper and blood, I am not going to be a deadbeat.” you were serious, you had plans to make sure he got everything he could possibly need for his future career. 

You were going to set up a bank account for him, decorate his room, teach him the basics of drawing seals on his body so he could use some of your custom seals, and you were even looking into finding a teacher to cover the subjects you didn’t have experience in. 

“I’m your son?” 

You backpedaled. 

“Well yes, I figured that when I adopted you- not that I’m trying to replace your original parents I just thought-I don’t have to call you that if you don’t want me to?”

“No I like it!” a grin broke across his face, his eyes going glassy. “I like that.” He sniffed, looking down at his licked-clean plate. “It’s just, are you my mom or my dad?” 

You blinked in shock.

“What do you mean?” 

His expression quickly turned from happy (overjoyed even) to deeply sorrowful. 

“You never told me anything, I don’t even know your real name.” 

Oh fuck. You had been so concerned with learning about Naruto (his favorite food, the sports he liked to play, his goals, his aspirations, his ideals) that you forgot to tell him anything about yourself. 

Connection was a two way street, and you had completely neglected your part in making that connection. You were so used to being secretive that you couldn’t share readily with anyone, not even your own son. 

“I-” something inside of you twinged unpleasantly. “To be honest Naruto, I don’t feel comfortable with that name anymore.” 

“You don’t?” 

“Y-yeah.” you winced, this was such a sensitive topic for you, and you weren’t sure how he would deal with it. You had sexual partners that just turned around and walked the other way sometimes (and to each their own, you couldn’t hold a preference against them). “I was in a sealing accident a couple years ago, one of my matrices got really tangled up with my...everything.” 

“Everything?” 

You sighed.

“Yeah kid, everything. They messed with some parts of my brain, and now I don’t feel like me if I use my old name.” 

“Oh.” he paused for a moment. “So do I call you my parent instead? Because I kinda thought you were more of a dad and Iruka was more of a mom.” 

You burst into a short peal of laughter. 

“Really? Why is that?” 

He grinned sheepishly. 

“Cause he cooks real good and tells me to wash my hands and brush my teeth, you teach me to keep my knives short and take me hunting.” 

You grinned. 

“Well a mom could do all those things too.” 

“I know that! But I just-” he flailed uselessly for an answer and you laughed boldly at him, thoroughly enjoying yourself. 

“I know what you meant Naruto, I don’t mind being your dad.” 

He relaxed. 

“Thanks dad!” 

Your heart gave a little thrill. That was your kid, that was your  _ son _ .

“Alright then son.” you stood from the table. “Are you going to help your dear old dad with these dishes?” 

He snorted.

“You sure are old, dad.” 

You pretended to be very offended, tossing a wadded napkin at his head. 

* * *

You remembered the first time you killed someone with seals.

At the beginning of your career, you were unaware that sealing was so unusual. Your sensei during your genin days had just given you study materials and told you to learn on your own, essentially leaving you to your own devices while he focused on his more ‘promising’ students. 

It was only until much later that you realized seals were a scattered art, and that your sensei had dumped you because he himself knew nothing about the only thing you wanted to learn.

The rarity of the sealing arts meant that despite how deadly they could be, no one had the forethought to keep an eye out for them. You learned that lesson on one of the first missions you took as a chunin.

It was a simple patrol mission, you were supposed to intercept a group of enemies that had been moving closer to your territory. You had scouted the area and were lying in wait when you were struck with the brilliant idea to use the time to your advantage. 

Sealing masters flourished if given preparation, it was all too easy to set a trap even with your limited experience. 

You had been so excited to apply what you had been studying for years, so eager to prove yourself as a newly certified seal master. 

You covered the entire path with seals so that when the enemy dodged (as you had been convinced they would) you would be able to set off the next array without hesitation.

Your first original creation with seals was a matrix that took up roughly three inches that let out a high powered stream of liquid the width of your pinky. 

During your testing you had tweaked the pressure until the stream could slice through bone. 

When set up in a large group you called it water weavers web. 

The chunin team you had been assigned to watched you critically as you set up the tiny slips of paper, each containing an intricate design of carefully drawn ink. 

All of the team had been older than you, and they made it no secret that they were doubtful of your inexperience and the flimsy appearance of your seals. 

Their doubt proved to be unnecessary. 

As soon as the enemy ninja were in the array, you let out a pulse of chakra. 

The opposing ninja, four men and a woman, were shredded between the jets of water before they could react. Exploding into bloody pieces of flesh and severed bone. 

It looked like they dissolved into a bloody mist, no part of them larger than a finger were left as the water tore through them and left their bodies so beyond repair they may as well have been mince meat. 

You threw up in the bushes, your face splattered with the gore of your first kills. Even those that had killed before in your group had looked downright green with the violence of it.

However, no matter how awful your first kill was, it would be nothing compared to what you would do to Mizuki.

The Hokage had not notified everyone of his treachery, he had bigger fish to fry than just one little minnow like this, and to do so he needed Mizuki to arrive without anyone knowing that he had already been discovered. 

So the job fell to you to bring him in.

Despite living in one of the most advanced military villages in the world, you were always astounded at how easy it was to manipulate the system once you were on the inside. There were some checks in place to keep shinobi from knowing everything about the workings of the village, but you only needed the most basic of information to slip past the patrols and onto the roof of one of the barrack buildings. 

It was a chunin building, holding dozens of basic apartments for military troops. They were provided by the state. You had been in the barracks for all of two weeks before you got your first big cash dump from your seal sales and were out of there like a bat out of hell. 

The walls were too thin to block sounds (or smells, as your short-lived neighbor of the past was so eager to prove) so if you wanted to arrest Mizuki while meeting the high stealth expectations of the mission, you would need to be near-silent. Luckily, seals were (by their very nature) silent, and you had plenty of time to set up a capture matrix before you were ‘officially sanctioned’ to make the arrest. 

You clung to the wall, delicately balancing on the metal hooks that were worked into your thick gloves and boots. You were using pure strength to avoid any of the more chakra sensitive chunin from locating you during the capture. 

On the brick that surrounded the window, a reddish matrix in clay ink was written. It almost perfectly blended into the stone, matched to the color that anyone passing by would have had to know exactly where it was in order to realize it was even there. 

You knew it was there, because you had been the one to place it over the course of several days. 

You may have gone a bit overboard with it actually, the matrix could probably contain a sannin. How unusual was that? The ability to take down one of the strongest in the world even though (objectively) the gap in your skills was so large. 

You smiled under your mask. How you adored sealing, if only given enough preparation time you could become a match for anyone in the world. 

A shame that most shinobi battles took place during spontaneous and blood-filled moments without any prior warning.

You use the sharp, golden fang that you wear over your canine tooth to make the tiniest pinprick in one of your exposed fingertips, drawing just enough blood for you to complete the matrix. 

All at once it comes to life like a writhing dragon, slithering into the room. You briefly see its reddish body crawl across the white walls before you feel it react through the tether attached to you. 

It wrapped around your unsuspecting victim, dragging him across the floor and into reach of the window. 

You gently slipped two of your fingers under the lip of the window, pushing it upwards without bothering to unlock it. 

The latch splintered under the pressure, and the glass cracked slightly as you forced it upwards, but you were too focused on your prey. Mizuki wasn’t just caught in your matrix, he was smothered in it, wrapped from his toes to the tip of his nose in reddish lashings that flowed with your rich, golden chakra. 

You felt a pulse of anger go through you, and couldn’t resist tightening the strands of the seal until his eyes bulged from his head. 

You crouch next to his bound, prone form, taking a deep breath of the smell of his fear. You check his identity swiftly checking him for modifications to his form. Only when you are satisfied that there were none do you wrapped one of your hands around the strap of sealing medium around his chest and tugged him up to your level. 

You slid the mask upwards, revealing the ruthless look in your eyes and the mean smile that stretched from ear to ear. 

You leaned in close, taking joy in the way he shivered. 

“Got you.” 

You only had a moment to react to an approaching chakra signature before it impacted with the window you were standing in. 


End file.
